Monday 22 January 2007

Reflections + Insomnia

I've just watched the first episode of the third season of Desperate Housewives and I must say it looks like a great season! Murderers, adulterers, patients in comas, shopaholics, workaholics, obsessive compulsive cleaners - it all makes for must-watch tv.

I had a massive nanna nap this afternoon and of course now I can't sleep. I'm sitting on the couch and am reflecting on the past year, how much has happened and how I want this year to be. Heavy stuff. When asked what I miss most about home, apart from the obvious like friends and family, some things are a little quirky. Like lightning storms - we get some rain here in Dubai (flash flooding this year!) but we don't get proper scare-the-dogs storms.

I was recently in the cockpit at night time and there was a huge lightning storm about a kilometer to our right and it was the most beautiful thing to behold. I miss things like that, but it takes seeing one again to make me realise how much I miss them in the first place!

Like good quality stone fruit from Australia. Dubai doesn't have many locally grown industries and fruit definitely isn't one of the few it does have. There's a chicken farm here somewhere but that's all I've heard of. Good fruit here is on the $$$ side, so you can imagine my delight recently when I found a pack of two brightly coloured, ripe and unbruised mangoes for a bargain at only 14.5 dirhams! That's only about $5.50! I snapped them up and took them upstairs for examination. They smelt like Aussie mangoes, but for that price, they couldn't be! I was due to go on a Bangkok/Hong Kong trip that night, so I placed them carefully into my cabin bag and toted them around for the trip. I ate one on the Hong Kong shuttle and I can confirm THEY WERE AUSTRALIAN.

Another of my Mum's pearls of wisdom is that there's only one way to eat a mango: Get as messy as possible. I did so, in the back galley, as far as the EK standards would allow. No doubt I had a big yellow smudge on my face and bits of mango flesh between my teeth, but it was totally worth it. I think I might have to get some in honour of the fast approaching Australia Day.

For those of you who have never eaten a mango - get onto it!

Let me share a beautiful description of how a mango tastes:

Jon, one of my favourite people and a very good friend who moved to Australia from England when he was 12 and had never eaten or even seen a mango before said that his first bite tasted like sunshine. I don't think anyone could ever top that description. Jon, I thought of you that day when eating the mango and trying not to spill it all over my uniform!

For those of you in Dubai - if you ask nicely, I might tell you where the quality mangoes are sold. It's such an unlikely place (read: all their other fruit is crap) that I never thought of looking before!

2 comments:

Daniel Watson said...

Hey Lauren,

Big blog fan by the way - you, me and Ash should combine for a super blog! People might actually pay us!

Anyway, I just wanted to ask if you could increase the size of the font on your blog... I need a magnifying glass to get through it!

That's all, I don't ask for much from our friendship, do I?!?! ;)

Sir Dancelot

pink poodle said...

Anything for a fan Daniel.

I think the super blog is a great idea. No doubt you'll glean lots of blogable fodder in your classes of fresh-off-the-plane newbies.

Thanks for your tips, have implemented the size factor already!

Lozzie x